Samsung's overhaul of its foldable phones for 2025 brought major upgrades to both the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7. Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 7, though, the Flip didn't receive any camera hardware upgrades this generation. The clamshell foldable is still rocking a dual-camera system on the cover with a 50MP primary and 12MP ultrawide sensor, and a 10MP front-facing camera.
The question is, did Samsung's switch to an in-house Exynos 2500 processor result in better image quality for the Galaxy Z Flip 7? Between a new chip and revamped computational photography tech, it's possible that the new model could beat the older Galaxy Z Flip 6 — even with identical hardware.
To find out, I put the Galaxy Z Flip 7 through a gauntlet of camera tests against the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the Galaxy S25. As it turns out, Samsung's image processing has noticeably changed on the new Flip. However, which one you prefer might depend on your individual style preferences. Let's dive in.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Primary camera
A key perk of owning a clamshell foldable is having access to your best camera nearly all of the time. For the Galaxy Z Flip 7, that's the 50MP primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture and a 1/1.57-inch sensor size. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 has the same primary shooter, and the Galaxy S25, included for reference, has a 50MP f/1.8 sensor with a nearly-identical sensor size.
The Galaxy Z Flip 7 does have a unique computational photography profile and color science, as you can see in the camera samples below. It has more color saturation in photos and loves contrast, occasionally at the expense of staying true to real-world colors. By comparison, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 can appear washed out at times, so in this area, the new model is improved.
For example, in the first slide, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 has too much saturation and contrast, causing the palm tree bark to be heavily darkened. The sunset colors in the sky are richer, but everything else in the photo is darker to achieve that result. In the second slide, this strategy works, as the Flip 7 recreates the blue sign better than the Flip 6.
The third and fifth slides feature more of the same darker colors and heavy contrast — look for the roof color in the former and the leaf color in the latter. The selfie shot in the fourth slide flips the script, as I feel the Flip 6 does a better job recreating my skin tone accurately than the Flip 7. It may suggest that the Flip 7 is using different color science profiles for faces and landscapes, which wouldn't be too surprising
Compared to the Galaxy S25, shots are surprisingly similar. That's somewhat shocking until you realize that aside from a few extra megapixels and a decimal-point difference in sensor size, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 have similar main sensors. Generally, I prefer the output of the Galaxy S25, but the Galaxy Z Flip 7 outdid it on a few occasions
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Ultrawide and macro photography
In ultrawide and macro shots, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 produce nearly identical photos. Some images will be a smidge more saturated on one versus another, but this goes back and forth in ultrawide and macro shots — it's not a clear trend like the main camera samples. Both phones are using a 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide lens with a 123-degree field of view.
With wide shots, this lower-quality sensor won't be able to match the detail offered by the main lens. The large FOV will help you squeeze everyone into the frame or capture a sprawling landscape, though
As I mentioned, color accuracy goes back and forth between the Flip 7 and the Flip 6. In the first slide, the Flip 7 does a better job at reproducing the colors of the palm tree. By the third slide, it's the opposite, and the Flip 6 does a better job of capturing the shade of the tree. Again, since the hardware is the same, this can be expected.
For comparison, the Galaxy S25 has a 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide lens as well, but with a smaller 120-degree field of view. This means you won't be able to fit as much in the frame when zooming out compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 6. However, the Galaxy S25 does an excellent job of adding detail in close-up shots.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Zoom shots
Flip phones don't often include telephoto lenses for optical zoom, and that's true of both the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. These foldables can only employ a trick called sensor crop to try to mimic optical zoom. It allows users to shoot 2x zoom photos at near-lossless quality, and it works well on the Galaxy Z Flip.
The following shots were captured using 2x zoom on both the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Flip
At 2x zoom, photos are more than passable and have a good amount of detail. In the first slide, I captured ducks on a lake, and you can clearly see the difference in color saturation between the Flip 7 and Flip 6 main cameras. But as far as zoom detail is concerned, I'm satisfied.
Anything further than 2x zoom will rely entirely on digital zoom, which is lossy. The image will get grainy and lose detail the further you zoom, and there's only so much post processing can do to avoid that.
The Galaxy S25 has a dedicated telephoto camera that can do 3x optical zoom, and you can zoom a bit further and get quality that's a bit better. Other flagship phones can do up to 5x optical zoom and occasionally beyond on niche models. A telephoto camera is always nice to have, but on space-constrained flip phones, it's not always realistic.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Low-light capture
The one area where both the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Flip 6 cameras let me down was in low-light photography. Night shots were hard to capture well, especially with light sources nearby that messed with the camera lenses. In some cases, I found that the Flip 6 did a slightly better job isolating light sources at night, preventing them from blowing out the entire image.
While I shot almost all of this test using the default settings, the one exception is the first slide below. The lit buildings on the water were too much for either handset, and I had to flick on Night mode to even get a discernible image. Even after doing that, the results were underwhelming, lacking detail and clarity.
The rest of the photos were shot using the default camera presets, and they turned out better in more favorable conditions. In terms of color science, I found that while the Flip 6 often produced the more attractive images, the Flip 7 results were more true to life.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: How good is the camera?
To sum up, Samsung seems to have tweaked its image processing for the Galaxy Z Flip 7, producing different results compared to the Flip 6 using the same hardware. Based on what I've seen, it feels like an effort to produce images that are more realistic. Samsung doesn't always hit the mark here, but I think that's why Flip 7 photos have more contrast and saturation. Even in dark images, there's a part of the photo that's more color accurate than the Flip 6 more often than not.
There's no need to upgrade from the Flip 6 to the Flip 7 for the camera, as the differences are marginal. However, what surprised me is how similar the Flip 7 now is to the base Galaxy S25 in terms of camera quality
A solid performer
While not an upgrade over its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7's camera system is versatile and capable. Thanks to unique cover display features, you can use the main camera for everything, including selfies.
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